Dale fans can think wistfully back to April 2014 when they see Oliver Langford refereeing Saturday’s FA Cup tie at home to Huddersfield.
That’s because the West Midlands official was the man in the middle for the final home match of the 2013/14 season against Cheltenham when two early goals gave Dale a 2-0 win to clinch promotion to League One.
However, four years earlier, Oliver was at Spotland for the late-season midweek encounter with Darlington which Dale needed to win to seal promotion from League Two.
As we all remember, Darlo won 1-0 to postpone Dale’s celebrations, although the victory couldn’t prevent The Quakers’ relegation to non-league football.
We also saw Mr Langford at AFC Wimbledon in February 2014, where Scott Hogan’s hat-trick helped Dale to a 3-0 success, while his most recent Rochdale game was our 1-0 win at Coventry last March which was decided by Ian Henderson’s injury time penalty.
Saturday will be Oliver’s 12th Dale appointment, with the first — our 3-1 home defeat of Barnet in August 2008 - being his debut game at Football League level.
His full list of Dale games is:
Aug 08 Barnet (h) W 3-1
Dec 09 Crewe (a) D 2-2
Apr 10 Darlington (h) L 0-1
Aug 11 QPR (a, CC) W 2-0
Nov 11 Preston (a) W 1-0
Dec 12 York (h) L 2-3
Feb 14 AFC Wimbledon (a) W 3-0
Apr 14 Cheltenham (h) W 2-0
Mar 15 Colchester (h) W 2-1
Oct 15 Sheffield U (a) L 2-3
Mar 16 Coventry (a) W 1-0
Oliver is a member of the Select Group 2 list of officials who mainly referee in the Championship.
His last Huddersfield game was their 2-1 win at Newcastle in August, but if we are looking for an omen, 12 months ago Mr Langford was in the middle for their FA Cup replay defeat at Reading.
After last Friday, where he refereed the 2-2 draw between Port Vale and relegation-threatened Bury, Oliver had officiated at 28 matches this term, showing 93 yellow cards and five red.